Syracuse, North Carolina Ready To Match Up

#24 Syracuse 95, #12 California 73
A very nice early win for a Syracuse team that has looked very athletic and tough inside. This night wasn't likely to go well for Cal, with Theo Robertson out, and because they just match up horribly with big teams. Cal has absolutely no size, and in order to try to deal with Syracuse's big men had to give 12 minutes of playing time to Max Zhang, a 7'3" popsicle stick who looked like he hadn't seen a basketball court before. Cal clearly benefits from the fact that there are no teams with elite size in the Pac-10. They'll never see a team like Syracuse. And as for Syracuse, nobody is going to remember or care that Cal was shorthanded when the Selection Committee puts together the brackets in March, so this will go down as a very nice win. I still have questions about the Syracuse offense, but it seems clear that against teams with inferior size that the Orange can score plenty of points on transition after defensive stops, forced turnovers or long rebounds. I'm definitely very interested to see what happens tomorrow night against North Carolina, one of the only teams in the country that can go toe-to-toe with Syracuse in the paint. Syracuse is bigger than North Carolina, but the Tar Heels big men are more talented overall, so it should be a good battle.

#4 North Carolina 77, #18 Ohio State 73
A quality win for North Carolina that sets up a nice match-up with Syracuse, that I just talked about a few sentences ago. If I'm going to bring up one worry for this Tar Heels team it's that Ed Davis and Deon Thompson both suffered from foul trouble almost this entire game, and their outstanding front line (which I think is the best in the country) really struggled without them. John Henson was really disappointing here. As for Ohio State, it has to be encouraging that they played UNC this close with such an awful performance. Evan Turner had 10 turnovers by himself, and while the team shot 30% from behind the arc, most of that came in the final moments after the result was mostly decided. Before the last 2:30 of the game, when they were down 13 points and the game was basically over, Ohio State was only 2-for-15 from behind the arc. If they could play this poorly and still only lose by four points to North Carolina, that bodes well for this Ohio State team when are more tuned offensively later in the year. Other than the California game tomorrow, Ohio State only has two other quality opponents before Big Ten play starts: a home game against Florida State on December 2nd, and a road game at Butler on December 12th. If Ohio State can win two of those three games, and avoid any bad losses in their other games, then they'll be in really good shape when they roll into Wisconsin on New Year's Eve to start their Big Ten slate.

Mississippi 89, Indiana 71
Tom Crean is putting together good recruiting classes, but it's clear that Indiana just is not quite ready for prime time. This young team just kills itself with silly mistakes that experienced, savvy teams don't make. One play that perfectly exemplified this was with just under six minutes in the game. The Hoosiers had scored six straight points to pull within eight, the Indiana fans were making noise, and the defense forced a steal. With a chance to pull within two possessions, on a 3-on-1 fast break, the player leading the break (I forget who it was) dropped off a short pass to Jeremiah Rivers, who bobbled it and kicked it out of bounds. A player of that skill catches that ball 99 times out of 100, but he failed in the clutch. More and more it seems like the bottom of the Big Ten is not living up to expectations. We knew Iowa was going to be terrible, but Northwestern has been decimated by injuries, and neither Penn State or Indiana looks very good so far. It's only mid-November, but it already looks like the Big Ten has split in between seven good teams that are heading to the NCAA Tournament, and four teams that are way back and fighting for 8th place. As for Ole Miss, they haven't looked outstanding so far, but they don't have to be really good to have a Tournament resume. They should run up a good record in the SEC considering that 10 of their 16 games will be against the awful SEC West. So if they can collect one more decent out-of-conference victory and avoid any bad losses then they'll be in really good shape to win enough SEC games to make the Tournament.